A BBC investigation reveals that Microsoft is permanently banning Palestinians in the U.S. and other countries who use Skype to call relatives in Gaza.

Reportedly, Microsoft has been banning and wiping the accounts of users who have leveraged Skype to contact relatives in Gaza. In some cases, email accounts over a decade old have been locked, destroying access to banking accounts, OneDrive storage, and beyond.

United States resident Salah Elsadi lost his account of over 15 years in the dragnet. “I’ve had this Hotmail for 15 years. They banned me for no reason, saying I have violated their terms — what terms? Tell me. I’ve filled out about 50 forms and called them many many times.” Eiad Hametto from Saudi Arabia echoed the report, “We are civilians with no political background who just wanted to check on our families. They’ve suspended my email account that I’ve had for nearly 20 years. It was connected to all my work. They killed my life online.”

Many of the users affected by the bans expressed that Microsoft may be falsely labelling them as Hamas

    • cro_magnon_gilf@sopuli.xyz
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      6 months ago

      I’ve mostly seen comment removals. Mods seem to use the option to remove comments instead of the downvote button… I tried to make a forum for mod abuse and discussions about how forums are moderated, but so far nobody is using it.

      Post to !mods@sopuli.xyz if you notice patterns of that sort of thing, maybe we can get it going.

      • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        I have some notes:

        None of what you’ve posted in that community includes enough context for me to make an informed opinion about the mod actions themselves.

        The first post you made 7 months ago includes a screenshot, but it doesn’t include the OP, so I have no idea what the Mod is even reacting to. For all I know I might agree with them. You also say it is on the “main meme sub”, but I have no idea what that means, you really need to indicate the exact community you are talking about.

        The next two posts don’t include anything tangible. No screenshots, no permalinks, not even usernames for the allegedly misbehaving mods. Only one of them actually says what community you’re talking about.

        None of what you’ve posted so far constitutes a “pattern” either. You’re mostly just complaining about one-off disagreements that you’ve had with Mods. This isn’t really doing anything to help hold mods accountable.

        And in your posts so far, you make a lot of extremely suspect complaints:

        In your first post you claim that a mod removed a meme for being “not funny to feminists”, which kinda sounds like code for “sexist meme”. You then go on to say that the mod “is surprisingly tolerant for a feminist”.

        In your second post you say that a mod “removed comments that weren’t feminist”, and sarcastically bemoan “so much for politics”.

        In your third post claim that a mod removed a comment for “not voting left”, but then go on to complain that others in the thread (not mods) called this person a Nazi. I don’t see what any of the other users comments have to do with anything if your goal is to hold mods responsible, but it’s also fairly telling that you think being called a Nazi is disagreeable, but won’t provide the context…

        Quite frankly you come across as a anti-feminist shitlord who has decided to be a busybody and make a whole community for you to be butthurt about feminist and anti-fascists mods. The reason nobody else contributes to the community you started is because you’ve set the bar so miserably low.

        • cro_magnon_gilf@sopuli.xyz
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          6 months ago

          Those are great notes, thank you! It’s kind of a low-effort community though, I must confess. I figured if more people wanted to be part of it, it could become more serious with better formatting. Since that hasn’t happened, I just threw in some stuff now and then to have any content at all.

          Quite frankly you come across as a anti-feminist shitlord who has decided to be a busybody and make a whole community for you to be butthurt about feminist and anti-fascists mods. The reason nobody else contributes to the community you started is because you’ve set the bar so miserably low.

          But yeah, you’re right that might have meant I set the bar low. I was never much of a content creator. As for anti-feminism, yeah I am anti feminist. Not because I don’t support and respect womens rights, but because under the guise of feminism, men become second-class citizens, due to the unfaultering belief that women always deserve more, and that being a man is a sin that should be punished. But that’s not what the community is about. Anybody is free to post there.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You can’t say war crimes are bad, because that helps Trump win. Trump will do more war crimes. Ergo, saying war crimes are bad means you’re in favor of war crimes.